I understand why people who haven't been there just do not realise why apparently intelligent, strong-minded women put up with such nonsense.
I didn't even think of mine as abuse. I thought he was a nice man who was depressed and had low self esteem, and needed cheering up and comforting. I was 23 years old, never had a boyfriend before, and had assumed I was too ugly/unappealing to get one, so I was humbly grateful that this older man (mid 30s) paid me attention. He was kind to animals (we kept loads of pets in the early days) and really sweet with the children, and when I was feeling low he was really sweet with me too. There were other times, but I was sure I was strong enough to tell him where he got off and indeed, he often ended up sort-of apologising.
If I wanted to go out without him, before we had children, he would say how much he worried about me and be convinced someone was going to slip me a Micky Finn so they could have their evil way with me (somehow he never worried they'd take my kidney). He'd even offer to drive me to places and wait, sometimes for hours; I refused as I didn't want to put him to the trouble, but then he would be suspicious as to why I didn't want him there...
After we had children, of course it was the unreasonable card: how could I go out on the razz while he had to stay in looking after the sprogs?
I nearly ditched him in the early days because he lied to me about smoking, and I didn't want a partner I couldn't trust. But by then we already had a dog, and my dad wouldn't let me keep dogs so if I went back home I'd have to leave my dear doggy... so I stayed and tried to work with DH to overcome his insecurities and make a nice life for both of us. He seemed to respond and things got better for a while - then things got worse, due to external pressures (3 DCs, too many pets, not enough money, house falling down etc) and his depression pretty much floored him. When my dad died he left us enough money so we could move house and leave the worst of the debts behind us, and DH perked up. He rebuilt our old house more or less single-handed, we had DS4 and moved back there, selling the newer house to clear our back debts, and I thought the best time of our lives was just coming up. We had been through hell together and survived.
Right about then he began to behave funny again, but as I was at work all day, minding DCs all evening and developing a serious computer games fixation in the little time in between, I didn't really notice. If he was clearly unreasonable I'd tell him where he got off - because I was strong, right? The rest of the time I was quite prepared to accept that fault lies both ways and either I had done something wrong, or it wasn't wrong exactly but he didn't like it, so it was only fair to make compromises. Besides, we had 4 DCs, still all at that time financially dependent and one of them very small, and I was the breadwinner; I couldn't just up and leave. It made sense to see it through after all this time... didn't it? I knew how to stop him, I knew the trigger points, when to give in and when to get firm. And he was quite helpful with the kids these days and sometimes even made a bit of money (about a fiver in a good week, but still)...
After 23 years he was still suffering from jealousy and mistrustfulness; I really thought he should have known me better by then. Never mind, soon I'd be fat and old and nobody would fancy me. Neither would he, mind you, as he'd always said he didn't like fat people and thought old people were funny, but I wouldn't mind by then and at least I'd be spared these SILLY accusations.
My "lightbulb moment" is a longish story and this is long enough already (I've probably told it in other places a few times) - I'm not proud of it as it involved me feeling I may as well be hung for a virtual sheep as for a non-existent lamb, and had a brief internet flirtation. It was pointless in a way as it just gave me something else to cry about, and if I'd been quite myself at the time I would never have been in the least bit tempted, but it did the business - it distanced me from DH for just long enough for me to take a proper squint at our relationship from the outside. It was quite a shock.
I knew I had to divorce, but felt terribly guilty about it, both for the children and for the remains of STBXH. My wonderful friend told me to hie myself unto Mumsnet and take a look at the relationship board. At the same time my bro sent me a link to a list of emotional abuse indicators. I realised he was probably doing quite a lot of those peculiar things on purpose, and began to google personality disorders to try and work out why. That was an eye-opener too. He's definitely paranoid and almost certainly borderline, with a dose of dependency thrown in and who knows what else. The only thing I'm pretty certain he doesn't have is OCD, as he's fanatically UNtidy!
During our long-drawn-out divorce (there is nothing nastier than sharing a house with your soon-to-be-ex abuser) I confided to the GP that I felt terribly humiliated to realise I had colluded in my own abuse for over two decades. She told me of someone she knew who was a clinical psychologist, who had just realised after 12 years that her own marriage was abusive. She'd spent her working life identifying it in others and helping them through it, but couldn't see it in her own household. Now that's humiliating! And you don't get to be a clinical psychologist if you're thick.
The thing that bothered me for quite a while is that I shall probably never know how much of it he could help and how much was a result of his bundle of personality disorders, caused I believe by him being emotionally and physically abused as a child. I have to tell myself, it doesn't matter whether he is evil or just damaged, the fact is that I cannot live with it any longer. I really could not have tried harder to help him, but in the end he could only drag me down with him. I had to get out for myself first, but the DCs have followed of their own volition, once they realised he was lying to them about me and that they could not change or help him either.
Does any of that even begin to explain why I didn't "just walk"?